


Shoulder to Cry On

by MarvellKya17



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Día de los Muertos | Day of the Dead, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Langst, M/M, keith’s pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 22:15:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21064058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarvellKya17/pseuds/MarvellKya17
Summary: Lance confides in Keith about some seasonally relevant, family related fears.





	Shoulder to Cry On

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know Día de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday. Yes, I know Lance is Cuban. Yes, I still wrote it because I like the idea of Lance and his family celebrating it.

Keith smelled something burning as he walked past Lance’s room. Immediately, he started banging on the locked door. “Lance? Open up if you can hear me!” No answer. Keith gritted his teeth in frustration. He kept banging on the door until finally it flew open. Lance glowered at him. “Do you mind?” He hissed. “Well, excuse me for trying to save your life!” Keith shot back. Lance rolled his eyes. “Not before you murdered my eardrums.” “For all I know, your room could miraculously be on fire and you’d be asleep, none the wiser,” Keith said, exasperated. “Well, that’s not what happened, so you can save the heroics for the Galra.” Lance slammed the door at the same time that Keith pushed it further open. Unfortunately for Lance, Keith had a slight upper body strength advantage - just enough to keep the door open. “What is burning?” he demanded. Lance glared and pulled the door inward, causing Keith to lose his footing. He stumbled into the room. In front of him appeared to be some kind of shrine. The floor was covered in different sized candles. In between were a few photographs. Confused, Keith looked back at Lance for an explanation. “It’s called an _ofrenda_. Congratulations, jackass, you saved me from my long dead relatives.” Immediately, Keith felt like he’d crossed a line. Obviously, this was something personal to Lance, and the best course of action would be to quickly and quietly leave, maybe throw in a genuine apology for good measure. Apparently, he took too long to make that simple decision; Lance sighed and gestured vaguely. “Just sit down. It might be nice to talk with someone about this.” Keith already felt surprisingly bad for ruining “this,” so he followed Lance’s instructions and sat on the floor in front of the _ofrenda_. “So… what is this?” he asked lamely. “It’s an altar to my relatives who’ve passed away,” replied Lance. “I’ve been keeping track of Earth days, and today is the first day of Día de los Muertos. Every year, my family sets up an _ofrenda_ for any family members who have died. They’re usually much more elaborate, but all I had were these candles and these three photos.” He pointed to the one in the middle. “That’s my grandma. She died a few months before I came to the Garrison. We were really close.” Keith, who’d been staring at the altar while Lance was talking, purposefully avoiding eye contact, forced himself to look at Lance. The Blue paladin had a soft, nostalgic smile that directly contrasted the silent tears that were beginning to spill. Keith knew that he was once again crossing a personal line, yet he couldn’t make himself look away. Lance glanced over at him then looked down, brushing the tears out of his eyes. “Sorry, I just…” “Don’t apologize. You miss your family. I get it.” Keith understood about missing family a lot more than his teammate probably realized. Lance made a half-laughing, half-crying noise. “Duh. But it’s more than that.” He met Keith’s eyes again. “We’ve been gone for so long, Keith. What if something happened to someone I love while we’re up here, fighting some stupid alien war?” The tears were falling, harder this time. “I wouldn’t even know.” Keith had no idea what to say - so he said nothing. They just sat there in silence. At some point, Lance’s head came to rest on Keith’s shoulder. Keith flinched at the contact but he didn’t move out of fear of upsetting the Blue paladin more. Eventually, Lance muttered a half-hearted apology and started to sit up. To both their surprise, Keith moved his arm around Lance’s shoulder, gently tugging him back down. Lance breathed a shaky sigh of gratitude. Neither boys moved for a very long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this! I know I posted a Halloween fic in non-spooky season, so I decided to make up for it by posting this in between Hispanic Heritage Month and Día de los Muertos. Hope you all enjoyed!   
Also, totally unrelated to the plot, but I just realized that Keith’s panic concern for fire safety is a nod to him being raised by a firefighter. (Let’s pretend that was intentional :))


End file.
